Slippage Among True-Blue Ohio R's Bad News for Bush

By Bill Rentschler

Hamilton, Ohio

Some Bush huggers of my acquaintance think it's positively awful
what those dratted liberals and confounded Democrats are saying about
their president. But I'm hearing even stronger stuff from some
bona-fide longtime Republican bleeders for their cause. I detect a
still fairly modest slippage among these normally diehard GOP
stalwarts that could tilt another likely razor-thin election the
other way, change the leadership of this divided nation, and send the
incumbent president back full-time to Crawford, Texas.

Let me cite several examples:

At a college alumni dinner in conservative Cincinnati last week,
the Rev. Robert W. Croskery, who guides the Pilgrim Chapel in Mount
Adams, delivered this moving invocation, which he called "an Irish
Blessing":

Let peace descend upon the cities and hamlets of the earth

As the mists of the morning cover the cornfields.

Let the bombs, guns and munitions be retired and locked away.

Let the peoples abandon violence with its death, destruction, fear
and hate.

Let there be partnership, harmony and cooperation in the United
States, the Middle East and throughout all the earth.

Let human energy proliferate in the progress of science, the
expansion of learning, the growth of wisdom, and the flowering of
faith.

May hope hold the hearts of the peoples of the earth, map liberty
and justice and brotherhood bind in one mighty accord and bond of
mutual respect the races and religions of humankind and may the light
and truth of America's greatest universities lead the way.

Amen.

At evening's end, I went to tell Rev. Croskery I was inspired by
his words. He volunteered that he was a longtime Republican utterly
turned off by the actions of President Bush and the national
administration, which he sees as mostly contrary to his
"blessings."

"Bush got us into a pointless war and hasn't the vaguest idea of
how to get us out with honor," he said. "Iraq is in a shambles, and
the cost to rebuild it will be vast. Meanwhile, Americans in need
right here are being ignored and shortchanged. I cannot vote
Republican in this presidential election."

I chanced recently to read a potent oped column in USA Today by
James Webb, who served as secretary of the Navy under President
Ronald Reagan. Webb was a combat veteran in Vietnam, and I remember
him as a dedicated conservative Republican activist. His column was
titled "Veterans face conundrum: Kerry or Bush?" and this is some of
what he wrote:

"The Bush campaign now claims ... that Bush has proved himself as
a competent and daring 'war president,' And yet his actions in Iraq,
and the vicious attacks against anyone who disagrees with his
administration's logic, give many veterans serious pause. Bush
arguably has committed the greatest strategic blunder in modern
memory. To put it bluntly, he attacked the wrong target. While he
boasts of removing Saddam Hussein from power, he did far more than
that. He decapitated the government of a country that was not
directly threatening the United States and, in so doing, bogged down
a huge percentage of our military in a region that has never known
peace. Our military is being forced to trade away its maneuverability
in the wider war against terrorism while being placed on the
defensive in a single country that never will fully accept its
presence."

Can you imagine Secretary Webb voting for Bush or touting him to
friends and acquaintances?

Completely out of the blue, I received a phone call the other
evening from a long-ago Republican friend who'd helped me greatly
years ago win election as president of the Illinois Young
Republicans. He'd learned from a mutual friend that I am now living
in my hometown of Hamilton, Ohio, and he got my phone number from
directory assistance. "I don't know where you stand these days,
Bill," he said, "but Bush and the crowd around him make me sick and
aren't even real Republicans. I remember when Republicans were
genuine guardians of tax dollars, but these guys spend our money like
creek water. The huge tax cuts, especially for the very rich, with a
war going on make no sense at all. They're cutting back environment
protection, and fouling the air again. You knew (Defense Secretary
Donald) Rumsfeld, didn't you? Well, he and Cheney are strictly for
war. They want to work our will by brute force. That's why the whole
world hates us."

My old friend went on and made it clear Sen. Kerry will get his
vote in November.

None of the above is scientific. These are merely random
vignettes. But how these three formerly staunch Republicans are
talking and thinking ought to strike fear into the hearts of the
White House brain trust and the president himself.

Bill Rentschler is a longtime author and former Republican US
Senate candidate in Illinois, now semi-retired in Hamilton, Ohio.
This originally appeared in the Hamilton Journal-News.